Later in the war, British can opt not to make/buy hundreds of Bothas and Defiants, last hundreds of Battles and Blenheims, Hundreds of tanks deemed not suitable for combat service (Centaur, Cavalier, Covenanter) can also not be made/bought.
But;
1- that list of programmes to be abandoned appears to be largely born out of hindsight. We disagree on the Defiant (all the reading I have done indicates that it was a fairly reasonable mistaken idea and not the total insanity some say) but stopping production of Battles and Blenheims, for example, is not as easy as you appear to think - see Blaughen's book on the Battle, for example.
Bill Gunston notes that even the best design teams could make mistakes even when using a wing and engines they knew very well, as in the case of the Chadwick's team making errors with the airflow over the Avro Tudor. He also notes that aircraft design is "a funny business" - many middle-of-the-road machines ended up being disasters although conservative designs, while some leading-edge ones were great (and many were disasters). The unpredictable nature of design means that unless you duplicate your efforts you have a very good chance of having no useable new equipment.
One notable thing is how many design teams turned out both brilliant planes and dogs - look at Chadwick, Mitchell, Tank, Messerschmitt, Horikoshi , etc. Even Kurt Tank got criticism for the Murat's drag and Kelly Johnston's F-104 has a bad rep in many circles - and the US seems to have had about 20-40 times as many design staff for an individual project as a typical British manufacturer like Hawker had in total. If seeing that a design was going to be a dog was as easy as you imply then all the great designers would only have created successful aircraft, but that is not what happened.
To quote Gunston again, "thoughout most of aviation's history there seems to have a fairly narrow margin between brilliant success and abysmal failure". He notes that the Spitfire, for example, could easily have been rejected because of the complexity of its wing structure.
In hindsight, and if one ignores much of the actual detailed history and the notes of experts like Gunston, one can always pick the right aircraft to build and the right aircraft to reject - but if it is so easy to do without hindsight
then why did no air force or design team in the world pick all winners and avoid all duds? The fact is that no air force or design team did so, so we are once again back to the equation that either everyone running every air force and every design team was a moron, or picking only winners is harder than some people think.
2- Even if the magic hindsight wand is waved and all the projects you want to cancel are dropped, how do the numbers stack up. For example, what do you use for training instead of Battles. and once these replacement trainers are provided how much is actually saved?
3- What are the actual amounts that you claim could have been saved in total and how much would the extra ground forces have cost?
Of course, this is not a simple cash transaction. With an early war divisional slice of 24,000 men, an extra four divisions is probably taking roughly 100,000 prime working age men out of the workforce where they can pay tax and earn export dollars (still a major issue throughout the war). So there's significant further costs to be added to the "simple" one of finding 100000 men, training them, housing them, feeding them, giving them weapons and taking them to the right place.
4- What are these men going to be armed with? The British army was short of guns, tanks, artillery, etc etc etc. Where do the extra weapons come from and when do they arrived, get tested, and receive trained crews?
5- What happens if there is no Lend Lease and you have been throwing so much extra money around so early? Even if the hindsight wand gets rid projects deemed worthless then the UK's money will run out quickly. If the UK has put more money into ground forces early on, what happens in say late '43?
Oh, it was not the case of either bigger thanks or fewer guns.
Spitfire's fuselage - that had no guns installed ever - was of generous size, that enabled eg. Spitfire III prototypes (that started the life as parts for Spitfire I) to be with 99 imp gal fuel tanks. Or that Spitfire V was ferrying in 1942 with an additional 29 imp gal tank behind the pilot, or that Spitfire IXs were eventually (if too late) available with 66-70 imp gal tanks behind the pilot.
The drop tank installation also had nothing to do with number of guns. If we want to put fuel tanks in the wings, the Spitfire VII and VIII were with total of 25 imp gals there, again the number of guns took no hit.
The thing that precluded the LR Spitfire happen was then-current doctrine at RAF.
That does not seem to be correct on the available facts.
The sequence seems to be pretty clear from Price and others;
1- After the Spit's basic design as an interim fighter is drawn up, the RAF draws up spec 37/44 for it calling for the designed four guns, a good armament for the time, and 94 gallons of fuel.
2- Sorely's arguments, and the general gun race, lead the RAF to spec F10/35, calling for preferably eight but at least six guns and reducing the tankage to 66 gallons, a deletion "which (Mitchell) welcomes" according to Sorely.
3- The Director of Technical Development noted in reply that he was NOT in favour of reducing the tankage. Dowding and Ellington agreed with the Director.
4- The revised spec therefore allowed for tankage to be reduced if necessary to fit the extra four guns. Mitchell "grasped at" the opportunity to reduce the size of the plane and therefore reduced the tankage.
5- It was therefore Mitchell, NOT the RAF, who made the decision to reduce the tankage. Surely to heaven you are not going to sit there, never (I presume) having designed an aircraft, never (I'm fairly sure) have flown a Spit, never (and I know this for a fact) having been in charge of the Supermarine design team and being as aware of the factors involved as Mitchell was, and say "Mitchell was a turkey, a muppet who created an inferior plane and a reasonable person without hindsight would have put the bigger tank in"?
What would the actual costs in performance have been? Do you have the slightest reason to believe that you can create a reasoned, evidence-based argument to say that the inevitable problems caused by the small tank should have been known AT THE TIME to be greater than the inevitable problems caused by making the Spitfire bigger?
6- As Quill and others say, the Spit was very sensitive to C of G changes and there were always problems getting enough design staff to dramatically increase the tankage. When the issue is known but resources are unavailable what can be done without hindsight? Quill also notes that the carriage of greater fuel in later marks was one of the factors that successively impaired the handling of the Spit.
The long range tanks used to get the Vs to Malta were removed when the aircraft got there. Either (1) those involved were morons or (2) those involved were there at the time, knew far more than you do about the situation, and did the right thing or (3) errrrrrr.....well, nothing else really. Take your choice but I don't think (1) is reasonable. When one reads time and time and time again from those who actually flew the plane - unlike you - that it handled poorly with the aft tanks full how on earth do you expect us to reject their expertise and experience?
Sorry, but surely you see it's reasonable for us to prefer the more detailed information from the people who were there and the authors of the major works on the aircraft?
7- Yes, it would have been good if the Spit had longer range. It was never intended to be anything more than an interim aircraft when it was designed and resources were scanty. Yes, the P-51 had better range but it also had drawbacks and was created years after the Spit, when designers had become very aware of high speed monoplane fighter design.
8- If the Brits were so bad then who was better in terms of designing a fighter at the time, and what range did it have? The 109 had the same issues and the Zero was later, had very long range and significant issues in combat.
9 - Perhaps the most important thing (and I think I've asked for it before with no response). If it was so easy to make all the right decisions then you should be able to provide us with a consistent, detailed and accurate set of guidelines that all new projects could be held to in order to ensure that no turkeys were made. So please, what are these guidelines?
If it's so easy to get it right then you should easily be able to show us how to do it, and not by using contradictory and inconsistent standards that are merely the application of hindsight.
Just saying "oh, we know in 2024 was X was crap so they should have known that in 1936, and we know in 2024 that Y was great so they should have known that in 1939" is not a logical or reasoned argument.
